Calypso's Journal: Strolling through Singapore

Danga Bay Marina, where we're situated right now is in Johor Bahru in Malaysia and directly across the causeway leading into Singapore, so off we went.

We have a friend, Susan Solomon (Sukey), who's been living in Singapore for quite a while now and she invited us to stay with her so that's exactly what we did. It was so great to meet up with her again and to visit with her 18-year old daughter who we'd last seen back in South Africa when she was only 5 or 6 years old.

Singapore, my goodness, what a beautifully maintained city - so clean, so full of magnificent gardens and greenery everywhere, so modern and so cosmopolitan. The city is chock-a-block full of electronic controls and everything works . If you drive into a parking garage, there are no attendants, a gadget inside the car automatically gets docked the appropriate fee. If you drive on a busy road, one is informed that it will cost a certain amount and this is also automatically docked from the same gadget. There are electronic signs throughout informing one just where there are parking spaces available to help with the flow of traffic. No car is allowed on the road if over 10 years old and no other cars other than Singaporean cars are allowed so if you just happen to live in Johor Bahru but work in Singapore, you can't take your car across unless you purchased it over there at some ridiculously high price for a license to purchase then the price of the car on top of that.

There are hefty fines for all anti-social behaviour eg littering and spitting which may seem a tad over the top but it works, the streets are a pleasure to stroll through.

It's a city with a myriad of cranes decorating the skyline as new buildings are being put up by the dozens. Susan bemoaned the loss of some of the old-style colonial buildings and we could see why, the few originals we saw were lovely whereas some of the new were simply garish. However, overall, it's a fabulous place. My favourite building was a tall art deco style, beautiful architecture with the most amazing decor inside. If more architects designed with this attention to style and detail, perhaps there wouldn't be so many unimaginative glass boxes around.

We had a short wander around the botanical gardens and Susan showed us an area with beautiful old Colonial homes (the last bastion) as well as some ultra modern shopping malls (how do they pay the rent?) We wandered around Arab Street with all things Arabian (carpets, silks, beads etc), and around Little India with its tempting curry smells coming out of each eating establishment. It was Divali (festival of lights) so there was much activity around.

We also visited huge buildings full of nothing other than electronic gadgetry - there are plenty of those, and streets upon streets lined with restaurants from all nations. She took us to a modern Asian supermarket where we sampled Japanese delicacies. It was probably best not to ask what they were; some were quite tasty but not all.

The overall impression is 'well organised' and spotlessly clean and we had to confess that it was a pleasure to walk around such an environment after months of dirt and plastic pollution.

Thanks Sukey for a wonderful stay.

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